Woman and the New Race | Page 7

were meted out to those women who sought this means of escape
from the burden of unwanted children. Dr. Werner shows that in
Germany, for instance, in the year 1532, it was the law that those guilty
of infanticide were "to be buried alive or impaled. In order to prevent
desperation, however, they shall be drowned if it is possible to get to a
stream or river, in which they shall be torn with glowing tongs
beforehand."
Notwithstanding the fact that at one time in Germany, the punishment
was that of drowning in a sack containing a serpent, a cat and a dog--in
order that the utmost agony might be inflicted--one sovereign alone
condemned 20,000 women to death for infanticide, without noticeably
reducing the practice.
To-day, in spite of the huge numbers of abortions and the
multiplication of foundlings' homes and orphans' asylums, infanticide is
still an occasional crime in all countries. As to woman's share in the
practice, let us add this word from Havelock Ellis, taken from the
chapter on "Morbid Psychic Phenomena" in his book, _Man and
Woman_:
"Infanticide is the crime in which women stand out in the greatest
contrast to men; in Italy, for example, for every 100 men guilty of
infanticide, there are 477 women." And he remarks later that when a
man commits this crime, "he usually does it at the instance of some
woman."
Infanticide tends to disappear as skill in producing abortions is
developed or knowledge of contraceptives is spread, and only then.
One authority, as will be seen in a later chapter, estimates the number
of abortions performed annually in the United States at 1,000,000, and
another believes that double that number are produced.
"Among the Hindus and Mohammedans, artificial abortion is extremely

common," says Westermark. "In Persia every illegitimate pregnancy
ends with abortion. In Turkey, both among the rich and the poor, even
married women very commonly procure abortion after they have given
birth to two children, one of which is a boy."
The nations mentioned are typical of the world, except those countries
where information concerning contraceptives has enabled women to
limit their families without recourse to operations.
It is apparent that nothing short of contraceptives can put an end to the
horrors of abortion and infanticide. The Roman Catholic church, which
has fought these practices from the beginning, has been unable to check
them; and no more powerful agency could have been brought into play.
It took that church, even in the days of its unlimited power, many
centuries to come to its present sweeping condemnation of abortion.
The severity of the condemnation depended upon the time at which the
development of the foetus was interfered with. An illuminating resume
of the church's efforts in this direction is given by Dr. William Burke
Ryan in his authoritative and exhaustive study entitled "_Infanticide; Its
Law, Prevalence, Prevention and History"_. Dr. Ryan says:
"Theologians of the church of Rome made a distinction between the
inanimate and the animate foetus to which the soul is added by the
creation of God, and adopted the opinions of some of the old
philosophers, more particularly those of Aristotle, as to animation in
the male and female, but the canon law altogether negatived the
doctrine of the Stoics, for Innocent II condemned the following
proposition:
"'It seems probable that the foetus does not possess a rational soul as
long as it is in the womb, and only begins to possess it when born, and
consequently in no abortion is homicide committed.' Sextus V inflicted
severe penalties for the crime of abortion at any period; these were in
some degree mitigated by Gregory XIV, who, however, still held that
those producing the abortion of an animated foetus should be subject to
them, viz., and excommunication reserved to the bishop and also an
'irregularity' reserved to the Pope himself for absolution."
To-day, the Roman church stands firmly upon the proposition that
"directly intended, artificial abortion must be regarded as wrongful
killing, as murder." [Footnote: Pastoral Medicine] But it required a long
time for it to reach that point, in the face of the demand for relief from

large families.
As it was with the fight of the church against abortion, so it is with the
effort to prevent abortion in the United States to-day. All efforts to stop
the practice are futile. Apparently, the numbers of these illegal
operations are increasing from year to year. From year to year more
women will undergo the humiliation, the danger and the horror of them,
and the terrible record, begun with the infanticide of the primitive
peoples, will go on piling up its volume of human misery and racial
damage, until society awakens to the fact that a fundamental remedy
must be applied.
To apply such a remedy, society must